BigBendFishing.Net

how would I go about registering an old boat that has no fl# on it and no identifacation of any kind on the hull.It is similar to a gheenoe but I belive it is a riverhawk.

register it in Alabama

bocephus wrote:how would I go about registering an old boat that has no fl# on it and no identifacation of any kind on the hull.It is similar to a gheenoe but I belive it is a riverhawk.

Have fun! Florida is the most strict place on the planet for boat regs! Right kneeknocker???

Take it to Tifton Ga. They do 2-minute green cards & Social Security numbers, 10-second Drivers Lic., and any registration known to man. All for 20 dollars. Tell-em JT51 sent ya.

You might have to "adjust the facts" and tell them it is home made. It is going to be a lot easier to ask about registering a home made boat than one that has no ID #. Your other alternative is to register it in GA, then later transfer the registration to FL.
If you decide to go the home made route, have the length and width to the inch handy as well as the weight of the boat and the trailer, separately and together.
Good luck, FL is the strictest state when it comes to vehicle regs.
FF

It's easy. I had to do the same thing last year. Just go to the Tag place and say the boat has been on a farm pond for many years thus the reason it wasn't registered. They will give you a sheet of paper to fill out that needs to be notarized and then you are good to go.

fishinfool wrote:You might have to "adjust the facts" and tell them it is home made. It is going to be a lot easier to ask about registering a home made boat than one that has no ID #.

Titling and registering a boat this way is title fraud. You could have your boat seized and be facing criminal charges. Go to the Tax Collectors Office and see what they say. They may require you to call the FWC and set up a vessel inspection. An Officer will come out and do an inspection and submit it to the DHSMV. The process may take several months, but it is better than ending up in jail.

Nathan

If it's never been motorized, and you can get a bill of sale or a bill of gift from whoever you got it from, any title clerk in FL can do it for you. If it has been motorized, you'll have to go to the trouble of getting it inspected and all that crap.

you are not kidding flint river.

Just FYI - might want to call up any Florida office first and say you have 'a friend' in this situation yada yada yada. I purchased a canoe brand new about 5-6 years ago with no intention of ever registering it. Then I found out a couple years later I needed to register it to use even a trolling motor. Miraculously, I was able to locate the original sales receipt and even an MSO that came with it. After several trips to the tax collector's office, each time being told I 'just need one more thing' I finally showed up with the filled out MSO, original sales receipt, 3 year old credit card statement reflecting said purchase (they required this because the sales receipt didn't have my name on it) and the canoe tied to the roof of my car...literally. Said canoe actually has a HIN plate that matched factory-printed MSO. Their final verdict was that they had no way of knowing the receipt was for said canoe, and that because the MSO was not signed by the original seller, that it was invalid. They put some sort of red flag on both my name and the HIN to prevent me from trying another office, which of course I did without success. According to them, the only legal way to title it was to petition the court for a grant of title; this included a $90 filing fee, $50 court fee, and a requirement that I post public notice of said petition for title for no fewer than 30 days, after which I would need to wait out a 90 day period during which someone could contest the validity of my ownership. If nobody did, I could then get a judgement of title, and pay roughly $150 to order a court-ordered title which would take 4-12 weeks for printing and delivery. After that, I could pay full retail sales tax, again, and a registration fee, and register it. Easy peasy, right? After literally 2 years of hassling with them, I actually ran in to the guy who sold it to me at a bonfire in Coonbottom. He signed the MSO for me and I than I got it registered no problem. In the mean time, I had actually tried to go through the ridiculous court petition, and nobody at the court house was able to give me any information whatsoever as to what exactly I needed to do (in fact they said it sounded ridiculous that HSMV wouldn't just give me the title). Perfectly reasonable, right?

So yah, I'd definitely call a local office and give them the details without giving your name etc, ask them exactly what they want, get the person's name, and bring it to that person. The other thing I ran in to in my experience was that each person I dealt with at each tax collectors office had to ask a supervisor what they could do or what I needed. In at least 3 cases, the SAME supervisor at the same office gave three different and contradictory decisions.

If anyone finds an easier way, I'm listening. I have a motorcycle sitting in my front yard that they won't title to me because the original valid title, signed over to me by previous owner, is signed and dated in different pen / different color ink. If all else fails I'm going to have to sell that to a friend in GA and have em sell it back to me. I HATE the HSMV / tax collectors. First trip to register my boat when I bought it actually turned me down as well because, in addition to all the legally required paperwork, I accidentally handed over the bill of sale from auction to dealer who sold me the boat. They refused to title my boat/trailer to me on the grounds that the extra piece of paper I gave them was not broken down as to price of motor, boat and trailer respectively and actually told me I was legally required to get the dealer to get an itemized bill of sale from the auction and give it to me (that is absolutely NOT true - the dealer already had a cleared transferred title which I had with me at the time). Seriously. Fortunately I left that office and went immediately to another office, without handing them that piece of paper, and got that one taken care of before their computerized red flag propagated from one office to the other.

The moral of the story is that the Florida HSMV is not only strict, but completely unreasonable, and in my experience has a pretty strong tendency to not even follow their own published policies, state statute, or whatever else might help you pay taxes and be a law abiding citizen.